First Church Family:
Last year about this time, we began a conversation about the need for housing in our county. Our Pete Kidder, Caldwell Habitat for Humanity executive director, helped us come to understand that:
· there are houses within a mile of our church where families with children live on dirt floors.
· more than 7,000 houses in our county are heated by portable kerosene heaters and by opening the oven.
· 7,764 families in our county spend almost one-third of their total income on housing.
· and many mobile homes in our county are so poorly insulated that families spend as much on utilities as they do rent.
I shuddered when learning of that need.
For the above reasons, and because of our church’s commitment to serving Christ and the poor, our church began a fund-raising campaign to put us in position to build a Habitat for Humanity house. It took only a couple of months to raise enough funds to sponsor a house.
Over the past weeks we have met our Habitat family, the Victory Harshaw family, and also her advocate, Martha June (from one of the first families to receive a Habitat home—and the very first family to pay off its loan.)
Volunteers are needed from our congregation to help work on the site on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays (from 8:00am – Noon) and to provide break-time snacks at 10:00am on Saturdays. Our Russell Beaver is coordinating work teams, and our Kay Lanier is coordinating the Saturday snacks. Be in touch with them if you can be a part of the mission.
Please pray for our Habitat project. Our church has been one of the most active institutions through the years, partnering with Habitat. And it is a source of both pride and humility to be able to partner again.
May God continue to both direct and bless our efforts to: “Glorify Him as we mold, nurture, and serve as disciples of Jesus Christ.”
Dave Melton
Senior Pastor